The Striver

by Stephen Solomita

  As Boots dropped into a chair, he found himself wondering if the man, closing in on seventy, was ill. Shaw’s voice seemed a bit shaky, too, but the man always spoke in a near whisper, forcing you to lean toward him. This was a tactic Boots commonly used to draw suspects into his orbit.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to this past week,’ Shaw said to Boots. ‘Since your encounter with the deceased John Pianetta on Monday morning.’

  ‘We’ve been searching for the woman Carlo was raping when he was murdered.’

  ‘And did you succeed? No, scratch that. Did Captain Karkanian direct you to find this woman?’

  ‘He never gave us an assignment of any kind.’

  ‘Did you keep Captain Karkanian informed of your activities?’

  ‘Cut the crap, Uncle Mike,’ Jill said.

  Shaw’s laugh, like his smile, was little more than a faint whisper. ‘OCCB didn’t uncover the existence of Carlo’s victim until this morning. Karkanian’s as dense as he is ambitious, but he does have one cardinal virtue.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘For police officers like yourselves, the job’s collective mission, to protect and serve, applies to the general public. To other police officers, like Michael Shaw and Serge Karkanian, the entity we protect and serve is the job itself. So I’ve been askin’ myself a question this morning. Was the job served and protected by the way you, Boots, goaded Stefano Ungaro and John Pianetta?’

  Jill started to speak, but her uncle merely raised his hand. ‘My office has received calls from a dozen reporters. They don’t question the Ungaro shooting. They concede it was justified, But they want to know why it happened in the first place.’

  ‘Well,’ Boots said, ‘now they’ve got some real meat to chew on. Johnny Piano, infamous mafia don, gunned down in a public park? They’ll forget about me soon enough. Remember, Ungaro’s not dead.’

  Shaw stared at Boots for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I paired you with Jill because I thought you might steady her. Now you’ve become like her.’ He picked up a remote and pointed it at a twenty-inch monitor. ‘I’m going to ask both of you a question at the end of this presentation. I’m expecting an honest response, Jill. If you lie to me, I swear I’ll bury you.’

  Boots expected the image on the monitor to be generated by one of the job’s mobile video units. Instead, he found a Google Earth photo of Fort Greene Park and the surrounding blocks.

  ‘The death examiner took one look at the severity of the wounds,’ Shaw said, ‘and told investigators they could only have been made by a rifle. But nobody heard a sound. And if the shooter was in the park, he must’ve been invisible. The park was crowded at the time and the witnesses we’ve interviewed didn’t notice anything out of order.’

  Shaw focused a laser pointer at the glowing monitor and used it to outline a grassy field in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. ‘We’re getting a relatively consistent story from the witnesses closest to the shooting. Pianetta and his men were standing in the middle of the field talking to a woman. At some point, a package changed hands, going from one of the men to the woman. Then the woman walked away, even as the men were shot. She never turned around.’

  ‘Are there any security cameras in the park?’ Boots asked.

  ‘No, and no cameras here, either.’ Shaw moved the laser to a building across the street. ‘You’re looking down at the roof of a five-story townhouse. The townhouse is up for sale and currently unoccupied. Approximately an hour ago, one of the uniformed officers assigned to canvas the block discovered that the basement door had been forced, most likely with a pry bar. CSU is on the roof as we speak. They report finding shoe impressions near a low wall facing the park.’

  Boots looked at Jill. ‘How far you think that is?’ he asked. ‘From the rooftop to the center of the field?’

  ‘A hundred yards, tops.’

  ‘Think you could do it? I mean take out all three?’

  ‘With a silenced rifle? Boots, they’d never know what hit them, especially if my partner in the field positioned them so they were facing me. They’d be dead before they knew they were under attack.’

  Shaw again raised a hand. ‘I said there’d be a question at the end of the presentation. I’m going to ask it now. Do either of you have any knowledge of this woman or the individual who fired the rifle?’

  There it was. The hoop Boots had been expecting all along. He looked at Jill. Her tight expression revealed only the pain she must be in. As for her uncle’s threat … well, she’d faced him down before. The issues for Boots were more complex. First thing, he wasn’t related to Michael Shaw and had no reason to expect Shaw to protect him. Nor would it be above Michael Shaw to punish Jill by punishing Boots. This is your fault, Jill. Boots wouldn’t be working inside the Midtown Tunnel if you’d only told me the truth.

  Boots chuckled. In fact, there was no decision to make. Three murders had to count for something, even if the slain were unworthy, even if they were violent gangsters who committed murders of their own. Boots’s desire to protect Corry Frisk had come as a matter of instinct. He’d known what Johnny would do if he got his hands on her. But he’d wildly underestimated the woman. Corry had something to sell, something that would draw Pianetta into the open, and that could only be the identity of the man who killed Carlo. Did she actually know who did it? Or had she run a con? And did it matter?

  ‘We ran down the victim,’ Boots said. ‘Carlo’s victim. We tracked her to her brother’s apartment in Jackson Heights. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, they’d packed their clothes and told the super they weren’t coming back. I had the super let us in – technically, the apartment was vacant – and searched it right before Karkanian’s call. I found these behind the couch cushions.’ Boots handed the Winchester cartridges in his pocket to Shaw. ‘The victim’s name is Corry Frisk. Her brother is Tommy Frisk. He’s ex-military and known by local merchants to be a little off.’

  Boots looked at Jill again. Was she disappointed? Too bad. ‘And one more thing, Chief. If there’s a departmental violation here, it’s not on us. No, it’s on Captain Karkanian. I think the violation is called failure to supervise.’

  ‘I’ll take that into consideration. So, you’ve nothing more? Carlo’s victim, her soldier-brother, a few cartridges, that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What about you, Jill? Do you have anything to add?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then we’re all on the same page. Excellent.’ Shaw steepled his fingers, the better to contemplate the ropy veins that covered his hands. When he spoke again, though he continued to whisper, his anger was apparent. ‘Over the next twenty-four hours, you, Boots, as lead detective, will write up day-by-day reports of all you’ve done over the past week. You will put those DD5s in Captain Karkanian’s hand by close of day tomorrow, after which you will join your partner on medical leave. No more bullshit, Littlewood. It’s sink or swim time for you. I can’t allow myself to be fucked over by precinct detectives.’

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel. Teddy Winuk was as happy as (to use his own words) a pig in shit. He didn’t even resent the casual blow that had dropped him to his knees. It’s exactly what he would have done if his and the cop’s positions had been reversed. In fact, he would probably have delivered a serious beating to anyone who disrespected him so blatantly. But the cop had merely continued on down the street, and for good reason. When Teddy finally discovered the address of the woman he sought, he was treated to a pleasant surprise. She was gone, along with her brother, off to parts unknown.

  Teddy had been returning from Jackson Heights to Sanda’s apartment in Greenpoint when WFAN interrupted its sports programming to deliver the best news of the day. The great Johnny Piano, untouchable mafia don, had been shot dead in a Brooklyn park, along with his closest advisor, Mike ‘The Rock’ Marciano.

  Usually moderate in his use of alcohol and narcotics, Teddy and Sanda had
partied the night away, alternating shots of Chivas with snorts of first-cut cocaine. The neighborhood was wide open now, exactly as he’d hoped. Johnny Piano’s surviving kid was too young to hold his father’s crew together. It was every mutt for himself and no tax to pay. What you made, you kept.

  Teddy wasted no time once he got past his hangover. He quickly organized four local drug dealers. These were men who worked in neighborhood bars, often with the approval of the bartenders. Teddy offered to supply them with product at prices markedly below those charged by the Pianetta crew, and to offer protection as well. As tired of paying the tax as Teddy, they’d not only agreed to go along, but introduced Teddy to other dealers, a few of whom were in need of a small loan. To tide them over.

  At one point, maybe a week in, Teddy realized that he was doing exactly the opposite of what he’d resolved to do only a short time before. Consolidation was out the window, as was a command structure that distanced him from day-to-day operations. But what could he do? Opportunity wasn’t just knocking on his door, it was hammering.

  Three weeks in, as Thanksgiving approached, Teddy realized that he needed to make another jump. He and his boys had always handled problems as they developed, using the personnel at hand. Now he had to acquire muscle he could bring into play at a moment’s notice. The remnants of Johnny’s crew were fighting among themselves, but they’d eventually return to the business of making profits. Other strivers, like the Turco brothers, were also making moves. In the end, you were only entitled to what you could defend.

  Teddy solved two problems at the same time. One of his junior partners, Ato Mutava, would never be an earner and Teddy was close to cutting all ties with the man, despite their long history. Now Teddy ordered Mutava to form a standby security force, five men, each of whom would draw a salary. There were many in the African communities that dotted New York who’d fought in one or another of Africa’s civil wars. Most wholeheartedly embraced the future and they pursued their opportunities, especially education, with a relentless energy that left other immigrants breathless. But there were a few deviants among them, men willing to sell their skills if the price was right. Teddy only needed a few.

  Teddy parked his car in front of the apartment he shared with Sanda Dragomir at five o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, three weeks after what the newspapers were calling the Fort Greene Massacre. He went upstairs to find Sanda perched on her stationary bike, pedaling hard. She wore pale blue shorts and a matching tank top made of a silky fabric that clung to her sweat-soaked body.

  Teddy’s first thought, when he came through the door, was that she’d somehow known he was on the way. But that couldn’t be true. No, desirability was a way of life for Sanda. Meanwhile, her work performance more than equaled her performance in bed. Teddy’s Jackson Heights operation was running like clockwork.

  ‘You interested in moving?’ Teddy said as he kissed the back of her neck. Even now, he could barely keep his hands off her.

  ‘We are going to Park Avenue, to live with rich people?’

  ‘More like one of the brick townhouses fronting McGolrick Park.’

  ‘Where is this park?’

  ‘On Russell Street about a mile from here. I can get a deal on the top two floors. It’s nice, Sanda. You look out the window, you’re staring at trees and grass, not a wall. Plus, it’s three times as big as what you have now.’

  Teddy walked into their tiny kitchen and opened the refrigerator to find a turkey resting on the top shelf. Thanksgiving was two days away. Personally, he didn’t give a shit about Thanksgiving or any other holiday. But the celebration was important to Sanda, who embraced all things American.

  ‘You Americans don’t know what you have,’ she’d told him. ‘In Romania, you learn when baby not to let anyone know of what you are thinking. You hide yourself away and learn to be only for self. Everyone has hand out. Not only police, but teachers at schools and doctors in hospitals. If you don’t have rich relations to protect you, then you are nothing.’

  Teddy had seen too many people living on the streets of New York to be all that impressed, though he didn’t doubt her sincerity. And he’d eat her Thanksgiving dinner, too. Sanda was a good cook and she didn’t complain when he plopped himself in front of the TV while she went about it.

  Sanda came up behind him as he grabbed a beer. She laid a sweaty palm on his neck and said, ‘Tonight I brine turkey, yes? Like top chef.’

  ‘And what about now?’ Teddy was thinking of dinner, but Sanda surprised him.

  ‘And now I take shower with silly man named Teddy Winuk to scrub my back.’ She wrapped a towel around his neck and twisted it tight. ‘You are my prisoner. I will do with you as I wish.’

  Teddy raised his arms. ‘Anything you say, Sanda. Just don’t hurt me any more than necessary.’

  Teddy Winuk took his customary seat in the back booth of Kopetnik’s Diner on Manhattan Avenue a little after nine o’clock the next morning. With no fixed address, and no fixed schedule, Kopetnik’s generally served as an impromptu office for meetings with his junior partners. Occasionally, however, men came along to pitch deals of one kind or another. The one he expected to hear today would be delivered by a man named Wilhelm Kennedy.

  Tobacco on the move was at the center of every hijacker’s favorite fantasy. Cigarettes could be sold off in a heartbeat, and there were profits galore, what with a pack of smokes running twelve dollars in the city. Opportunity wasn’t lacking, either. Trucks carrying thousands of cartons, each carton containing ten packs, crisscrossed the five boroughs every day. They’d be easy meat if they didn’t also contain a tracking device that alerted a company dispatcher if the vehicle deviated from its preprogrammed route by as little as fifty feet.

  Wilhelm Kennedy claimed to work for Wizard Enterprises, a cigarette warehouse in the Bronx that maintained a fleet of twenty box trucks. A truck mechanic by trade, he passed his days in Wizard’s garage, doing whatever job the fleet supervisor assigned him, including the installation and maintenance of tracking devices.

  ‘I can disable the tracking device on a Wizard truck in under a minute,’ he’d told Pablo. ‘The trick is knowing where it is.’

  There were flies in this ointment. For one thing, if the system was disabled that fast, the cops would immediately suspect an inside job. Would Kennedy stand up to the heat? That remained to be determined.

  Teddy ordered his standard breakfast from Inga, Kopetnik’s long-time head waitress. Corned beef hash and two eggs over, hold the potatoes.

  ‘You gonna be with family tomorrow?’ Inga asked as she wrote down his order. ‘For Thanksgiving?’

  Teddy thought it over, then said, ‘Yeah, I am.’

  Ten seconds later he was forced to revise his expectations when he glanced out the window to find, not Pablo and Wilhelm Kennedy, but Detectives Littlewood and Kelly, heading for the front door.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  With no choice in the matter – Teddy had his back to the wall furthest from the front door – he stayed put as the two cops approached, merely reminding himself to keep his mouth shut. He’d let his lawyer do the talking. After all, that’s why they called them mouthpieces.

  ‘You’re not carrying, are you, Teddy?’ the big cop, Detective Littlewood, said. ‘You don’t have a gun on you?’

  From the look on his face, the man had to be hoping. The other one, Kelly, was off to the side, waiting for an excuse.

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘I believe you, Teddy, but I gotta search you anyway.’

  ‘Does that mean I’m under arrest?’

  ‘No, you’re not. We just want you to come down to the station. There’s something – actually, a few things – we need to show you. Now, please, stand up and place your arms away from your body.’

  Teddy raised a hand. ‘I’m not resisting, but do we need to do this here? I have breakfast in the diner almost every day. People know me and they’re gonna think I’m being arrested.’

  Teddy watched Littlewo
od glance at his partner, who shook her head. The movie was about to begin and she would be the bad cop. Teddy thought of Sanda and some of the games they played. Kelly was beautiful, as beautiful in her own way as Sanda. But Sanda was all about seduction, while the cop’s frigid eyes transmitted little beyond contempt.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Boots finally said, his tone affable. ‘We’re parked around the corner on Freeman Street. If you agree, I’ll do the search there so you won’t be embarrassed. How’s that work for ya?’

  Two minutes later, Teddy stood with his hands on the roof of an unmarked Toyota while Kelly, not Littlewood, ran her hands over his body. Teddy assumed the rough handling was meant to demonstrate a bit of that contempt he sensed, but he found the scene erotic. If this was a porno film, their clothes would be coming off in the car. All three of them.

  They drove the five minutes to the Sixty-Fourth Precinct in silence. Though Teddy wasn’t handcuffed at that point, the two cops stayed close as they walked him past a sergeant seated behind a desk, through the lobby and up three flights of stairs. They encountered other cops at every point and Teddy had to fight a dream-like sense of being drawn into a nightmare place he didn’t want to be, and from which there was no escape.

  All part of the drill, he told himself as they walked through a door marked DETECTIVES and into a large room. Several smaller rooms off to one side were obviously meant for interrogation. No more than ten-by-ten, they stood with their doors open to reveal hard plastic chairs set around small tables.

  The cops’ next move would reveal their intentions. Would they shove him into one of the interrogation rooms or ask him to have a seat at one of the desks in the squad room? How bad was it going to get?

  ‘Hey, Boots, the boss wants to see you.’ The small black man who spoke was seated at the only occupied desk. ‘He’s been askin’ for you all morning.’